What A Messy Storm In The Middle Of The Country!

A large area of the central U.S., in pink, is under a winter storm
warming. Blue areas are mostly under winter weather advisories.

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas!

The weather here in Vermont was certainly a nice holiday gift. Most places around the Green Mountain State had at least a little fluffy snow on the ground. The sky was blue, the sun shone brightly, the air was crisp and seemed to sparkle it was so clean.

Now it's back to reality, folks. In Vermont, it has tended to cloud up since yesterday, but there's no really bad weather to talk about until Thursday night. I'll get to that in a minute

First, as advertised, there's a sprawling storm developing in the middle of the country that is causing a  wide variety of havoc for people. Especially those traveling back home from holiday gatherings.

A vast area from eastern Colorado to Minnesota is under a winter storm warning. Near blizzard conditions are likely in many of these areas, especially tonight and tomorrow. A  foot of snow could come down in many these areas, and winds will easily top 40 mph in gusts.

It looks a stripe from central South Dakota, into southeastern North Dakota and parts of western Minnesota will get the heaviest snow, with up to 18 inches possible.

Along the eastern edge of this snowstorm, sleet and freezing rain will make travel especially scary, and might cut power in a few areas.

On the south side of the storm, severe storms, possible tornadoes and maybe some flooding are risks today and tomorrow.

The focus today is on Texas, where the storm threat is highest. The biggest tornado threat later today and this evening is probably in central Texas in an area centered around Waco.  Overnight, into tomorrow, there is a slightly lesser, but still real chance of tornadoes heading into east Texas and Lousiana.

The Southeast is quite sodden from recent storms, and this particular system will spread heavy rains throughout that region over the next couple of days. It actually looks like weather fronts and moisture will stall over the Gulf Coast region into next Monday, continuing the flood threat at least until then.

VERMONT IMPACTS

That huge storm system will certainly affect us here in Vermont. It will sort of be a rinse and repeat of last Friday, with some differences. Those differences mainly involve more mixed precipitation than last time at the onset, and somewhat less rain than we got a week earlier. That means flooding won't be as big a problem as it was last weekend.

Snow, sleet, freezing rain and in many places rather strong, gusty winds will develop in Vermont Thursday night and continue into Friday morning. I'm guessing the Friday morning commute will be pretty darn tricky. That's especially true along and east of the Green Mountains, where it will take longer to warm up.

Some areas might pick up an inch or two of snow and sleet before things go over to rain.

Friday looks wet, and the precipitation will wind down at night into the form of rain showers changing to snow showers. No big accumulations are expected from that.

Storm Rages In North Dakota; Also Impacts Here In Vermont

Traffic cam near Bismarck, North Dakota along
Interstate 94 demonstrated the dangerous driving
conditions in the region Sunday night. 

As expected, it was a wild Christmas Day in the Northern Plains as a powerful storm brought blizzards, lots of ice, high winds, rain and severe thunderstorms.

The storm, heading into Canada, will hit my area in Vermont and surrounding areas with freezing rain and strong winds today. I'll get to that in a bit.

DAKOTA STORM

North and South Dakota, and parts of Minnesota really took the brunt of this storm, A good chunk of western and central North Dakota, and northwestern South Dakota, had their expected blizzard.

Central South Dakota, eastern North Dakota and adjacent parts of Minnesota had a damaging ice storm, with ice accumulatiions of up to a half inch. That brought down quite a few trees and power lines.

Thousands of Dakotans lost electricity.

Everywhere in the region, the wind howled, with gusts over 55 mph reported over a wide area of the Northern and Central Plains. Some areas got 70 mph.  Long stretches of Interstate highways in the Dakotas were closed because of the dangerous conditions.

The weather in Rapid City, South Dakota had to be practically the worst in the world shortly before 1 p.m. Christmas Day. At the time, the temperature was 21 degrees, freezing rain was falling and the wind was northwest at 35 mph gusting to 70 mph.

Not a lot of outdoor Christmas caroling in Rapid City at that moment, I bet!

Many areas in the eastern Dakotas had thunder and lightning accompany the snow and/or ice.

For instance, my relatives in the city of Yankton, in southeastern South Dakota, experienced a Christmas that featured loud morning thunderstorms, gusty winds, rain, then howling gusts of up to 72 mph last night.

I'm sure there's tree damage and power failures in that area.

Also as expected, the storm disrupted Christmas travel. The appropriately named meteorologist Greg Gust at the National Weather Service in Grand Forks, North Dakota said "Between the ice and snow, and winds howling like crazy, there will be nothing moving," he said, according to CBS News.

The weather will gradually improve in the Northern Plains today, even as it deteriorates in the Northeast.

VERMONT AND ENVIRONS

For my readers in Vermont, today's going to be tricky as a result of that sprawling storm that hit the Dakotas.

The strong storm's warm front is heading into the Northeast, along with a packet of strong winds in soe areas, so it's going to be a tricky day and evening in many areas.

Freezing rain advisories are up for broad areas of Pennsylvania and New York today, and in northwestern Connecticut, western Massachusetts, eastern Vermont and much of New Hampshire this afternoon and evening.

The freezing rain won't be heavy enough anywhere in this region to bring down trees and power lines, but it will be more than enough to make roads very icy and treacherous.

Even as temperatures rise above freezing this evening, the ice will remain for awhile because the ground is rather cold.

Additionally, a freezing rain warning is up for southern Quebec, and a winter weather advisory is up for northern New Hampshire and much of interior Maine for a couple to a few inches of snow, followed by ice.

Be careful driving out there folks!

Strong winds are going to be another issue, especially in Vermont's Champlain Valley, where the terrain will channel south winds up the valley.

Winds will gust to 50 mph or a little more late today and this evening in the Champlain Valley, which would cause scattered power failures and bring down some branches and trees.

Waves on still mostly unfrozen Lake Champlain could reach as high as seven feet tall. Luckily, lake levels are low, so I don't expect too much damage from the waves on exposed shores.

Winter To Finally Hit Parts Of Nation Over Next Few Days

There's been a notable lack of winter
storms like this one in the nation so far
this month. That's about to change 

Snow has been seriously lacking in the United States so far this late autumn.

Oh, sure there have been decent snows in the higher elevations in the Rockies and in the mountains of northern New England.

But by this late in November, the United States has usually seen a couple good, widespread snowstorms somewhere in the northern half of the nation.  Not this year.  It's been pretty much storm free for the past few weeks.

Until now. The weather pattern is finally changing. A blizzard watch is up for parts of the northeastern South Dakota, a bit of southeastern North Dakota and a little piece of western Minnesotal.

Winter storm watches are in effect for a broader in a band from Wyoming through much of Minnesota.  Much of western Colorado is also under a winter storm watch.

In the blizzard watch zone, six to 10 inches of snow could fall, with winds gusting to 50 mph. The region about to be hit by the winter storm had record high temperatures earlier this week, so the snowstorm and blizzard might come as a bit of a shock.

The storm that will likely cause the Dakotas/Minnesota snowstorm will move into Ontario toward the weekend, but a new storm will form somewhere near or over New England Saturday or Sunday.

That means rain is likely, which is good news because we could still use it in much of the Northeast. The drought is kinda lingering on.

The mild weather will come to an end in the Northeast, too with this weekend storm. By Sunday, temperatures will be crashing, and rain will change to snow, especially in the higher elevations.

I don't think there will be much snow with this, except in the mountains, which could pick  up a few inches. I think the lake effect snow machine will finally rev up along the shores of the Great Lakes, too.

Temperatures will be wintry in northern New England by early next week, so get ready for that.

There has been a dearth of storms across the nation in recent weeks, up until now, so the weather has been remarkably calm.

But this initial storm signals a pattern change. It's going to be much stormier than it has been in recent weeks over the nation, so various places are at risk for several more winter storms over the next few weeks.

It's hard, if not impossible to pin down exactly who will get hit by winter precipitation after this weekend, so stay tuned. Anyone in the northern half of the nation could be a target with this likely parade of wintry storms.

Plains Storms Yield Awesome Time Lapse Weather Porn Videos

Supercell in western South Dakota on Monday.  

Supercell thunderstorms have raked parts of the northern, western and central Plains this week, producing a few tornadoes, lots of giant hail, winds, and flash floods.

More of that kind of weather is due today, especially in eastern Wyoming and Colorado, and much of Nebraska and Kansas.

I'm sure we'll have lots of chasers making lots of great images and videos today, since I think today's storms will be more widespread than they were Monday and Tuesday.

A lot of storm chasers and videographers are employing time lapse video to capture the movement of these rotating supercells to great effect.

Here's some examples of this week's weather:

For starters, here's a  photogenic supercell that almost produced a tornado in western South Dakota on Monday

 

Here's another rotating supercell over Strasburg, North Dakota, which produced damaging winds, baseball sized hail, a flash flood, and maybe a brief tornado:



Now, we have a supercell that blew up southeast of Scottsbluff, Nebraska just before sunset last night. It seems to split in two, but no matter what, it's spectacular.